Megan Mullally

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Megan Mullally
Born November 12, 1958 (1958-11-12) (age 49)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Spouse(s) Michael A. Katcher
(1992-1996)
Nick Offerman
(2003-present)
Official site meganmullally.net

Megan Mullally (born November 12, 1958 in Los Angeles, California, U.S.) is a four-time SAG and two-time Emmy Award-winning Irish-American actress, talk show host and singer, best known for her role as Karen Walker on Will & Grace.

Contents

Born in Los Angeles, Mullally moved to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, at the age of 7. Her father, Carter Mullally, Jr., was a contract player with Paramount Pictures during the 1950s and her mother was a model. She studied ballet from the age of six and performed in a ballet company during high school. She revealed on a March 2006 episode of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno that she spent her summers in Los Angeles because of her mother's work.

Following her graduation from Casady School, she attended Northwestern University, where she majored in English Literature and Art History. She became active in local theater and eventually left college without graduating. She worked in Chicago theater for six years.

Mullally moved to Los Angeles in 1981, after just two weeks as a client with the William Morris Agency, she began appearing in bit parts in films and television, such as Murder She Wrote with Angela Lansbury. Megan made her series debut in The Ellen Burstyn Show and guest starred in popular sitcoms such as Seinfeld, Frasier, Wings, Ned and Stacey (with future Will & Grace castmate Debra Messing, although the pair did not appear in any scenes together as they were involved in completely separate storylines), Mad About You, and Just Shoot Me!

In 1998, she landed the role of Karen Walker, Grace Adler's shrill-voiced, pill-popping, eccentric assistant in the NBC sitcom Will & Grace. She won Emmy Awards in 2000 and 2006 for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series (and was also nominated in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005), and she has also won three Screen Actors Guild Awards. In addition, Mullally earned four Golden Globe Award nominations for the show. Although she did not win the Emmy in 2005, she did, based on votes from viewers, win the "Emmy Idol" award for singing the Green Acres theme song, in character as Karen, alongside Donald Trump. Although her own voice has a fairly high range, she developed an exaggerated high voice for the Karen Walker character. However, in the pilot episode of the series, she used her real voice. Will & Grace ended in May 2006.

In 2005, Mullally "discovered" comedian and actor Bill Hader while he was with the troupe "Animals From The Future," bringing Hader to the attention of Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels.

Following Will & Grace, Mullally hosted her own talk show, The Megan Mullally Show, which was launched in September 2006. The talk show was canceled in early 2007 due to poor ratings.[1][2]

Mullally was the host of the 2006 TV Land Awards. She has also been featured in advertisements for M&M's candies and the website cheaptickets.com. Mullally also had a voice cameo as the mother of Neil Patrick Harris' character's mother on a November 2006 episode of the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, and guest starred on Campus Ladies. She was in one episode of the drama Boston Legal in 2007.

She made her Broadway debut in 1994 in a revival of Grease in the role of Marty, with Rosie O'Donnell and later appeared in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying with Matthew Broderick. She is heard in the cast albums of both productions. She opened in her own one-woman show, Sweetheart, in Los Angeles in 1999.

Mulally is currently starring in the new Mel Brooks musical, Young Frankenstein as Elizibeth. The role was made famous by Madeline Kahn in the original film. She has recieved nearly unanimously outstanding reviews and is a serious choice for a Tony Award. She took over the role after Kristin Chenoweth dropped out due to conflicts relating to her sitcom, Pushing Daisies. She is featured on the cast album and performs Please Don't Touch Me a favorite of the score. Elizibeth is the wealthy finace of the title character who is a prissy snob that leaves her engagement with Frankenstein to marry his monster. Her original co-stars include Tony Award-winners Roger Bart, Sutton Foster, Andrea Martin, and Shuler Hensley. Rehersals for the production began in June and a pre-Broadway run opened to mixed reveiws in Seattle, Washington. The show premired after previews on November 8, 2007.

Mullally is also a singer and performs in her own group called The Supreme Music Program. The band has released three albums, The Sweetheart Break-In, Big as a Berry and Free Again!. She also recorded a duet with Carly Simon on the track The Right Thing To Do for the Will & Grace: Let the Music Out! soundtrack. The third album from the SMP was originally titled "The Many Moods.. Vol, 1." however, the title was changed before going to print. The third album, "Free Again!", was released online on 28th July 2007.

Her feature film debut was as a call girl in Risky Business and has parts in Stealing Harvard, Anywhere but Here and the Martin Lawrence comedy Rebound. She also is a voice actress who has done work on several cartoons, such as the 1990s version The Flintstones, Batman: The Animated Series, King of the Hill, the Disney feature film Teacher's Pet, and the upcoming Dreamworks film Bee Movie.

Mullally commented in an interview in The Advocate magazine, "I consider myself bisexual, and my philosophy is, everyone innately is."[3]

Mullally dated actor William H. Macy while in college.[4] Her first marriage, in the mid-1990s, was to talent agent Michael Katcher. In 2003, Mullally married actor Nick Offerman (who guest-starred on Will & Grace during its fourth season). She currently lives in West Hollywood, California, with her husband and two poodles, Willa and Elmo.

Awards
Preceded by
Kristen Johnston
for 3rd Rock from the Sun
Emmy Award – Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series
for Will & Grace

2000
Succeeded by
Doris Roberts
for Everybody Loves Raymond
Preceded by
Sarah Jessica Parker
for Sex and the City
Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress - Comedy Series
for Will & Grace

2001, 2002, 2003
Succeeded by
Teri Hatcher
for Desperate Housewives

  1. ^ [1]
  2. ^ [2]
  3. ^ "The Advocate's 25 Coolest Women", The Advocate, November 23, 1999
  4. ^ The Megan Mullally Show interview with Felicity Huffman.
  • Megan Mullally, Biography Resource Center Online. Gale Group, 1999.
  • Jamie Painter Young, Clowning Glory. Back Stage. 19 Dec. 2003: B-38.

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Preceded by
Cedric The Entertainer
Host of TV Land Awards
2006
Succeeded by
Kelly Ripa
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